Right As Rain
by more-than-melody
Summary: They both prefer their dreams to reality, but she believes that that is not where they belong.. RoyxRiza, Royai
1. Reckless

Disclaimer: FMA isn't mine.

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She remembered all those years ago, when he was still her fathers' apprentice, and she was still her fathers' daughter, the first time there had been a rain storm since he'd come to live with them.

She'd stripped off her sweater and run outside in nothing more than a blouse and her skirt, barefoot, her socks and shoes discarded on the front steps of the rickety porch.

It had been dark out, the guttering porch light with it's cobwebs and dust frosted glass casting a feeble glow over his face as he stood on the porch, the roof overhead providing his only, frail shelter. The white of her skin had stood out in the dark as she danced, twirling in the rain, splattering her feet and her legs and her clothes with mud.

"Riza!" It was then she'd known he was afraid of the rain, that he who lived with flames licking at his fingertips and consuming his soul was afraid of the one thing that could put the fire out. He'd been afraid for her, with her hair plastered to her face and the water pooling in the folds of the fabric that clung to her small body.

The rain made her feel free, setting her loose from the expectations and responsibilities her father had given her, that his apprentice represented. She could tell when it was going to rain because the leaves on the trees outside showed their shiny undersides far before the clouds began to gather in the sky. She loved the way the lightning made her hair stand on end, the way the thunder drowned out voices and she could scream at the top of her lungs with no one hearing.

Reckless, he'd called her. He had called her reckless, when he was the one who played with fire.


	2. Realize

Disclaimer: FMA isn't mine. :(

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Sometimes he did the things he did, just to see if he could get some sort of a reaction out of her. Sometimes he was a bit more reckless or rude, angry or harsh, just to see if he could make her display some emotion other than indifference. He knew just what would irritate her the most, just how to appeal to her softer side, after all those years spent together in her fathers' house.

Rarely did it work.

When it did, it was an accident, on both of their parts. She had slipped for a moment, and he had overestimated himself. Or the other way around. It was the times that he didn't try that gave him what he was after. And even though the reaction was always partially the one he was looking for, he always wished it hadn't happened in the first place.

There was the battle against that homunculus, Lust. He'd almost died. He should have died, by all natural laws. And her mask had slipped, shattering on the cement floor. Even though he would have given almost anything to know that she actually cared whether or not he lived or died, he hadn't been prepared for exactly how much she had cared. He hadn't realized how much it would hurt.

He would have given anything to turn back the clock, to make is so that it hadn't happened. So that she wouldn't have had to realize either.


	3. Regret

Disclaimer: FMA isn't mine.

Song: Shadowboxing - Ed Harcourt

* * *

_She can't ever love him,_

_no man is ever innocent..._

They both had their demons, shadows on their hearts. There were those small moments, fleeting glimpses into the window of their souls, when they saw clearly through the walls they had built up, saw more of each other than they should. When they saw what might have been, what should have been, and what could never be.

He saw that she had truly loved him, once. Before she'd seen the horrors of war, before she'd gotten a glimpse of the demons he tried so hard to keep hidden. Before she'd forgiven him for everything he'd done, before he'd tried to forgive himself. He saw that she still loved him, in a warped, twisted way, no matter how much she tried not to, because they both had the blood of innocents on their hands.

She saw that he understood, that he knew what he'd lost, what they'd both given up so that he might accomplish his goal and find some peace of mind. She saw that he knew what that peace of mind would cost him. She saw that she meant more to him than any of the women he went out with, that he could never admit how much more, not even to himself.

It was moments like that, when their eyes met and his throat went dry and she swore he could hear her heart pounding in her chest that their regret was strongest. When they knew all the words that went unspoken between them would remain so, because neither of them could find the words to say what they wanted to. It was then that the rift that had grown between them was the smallest, but it was then that it seemed the hardest to cross.

* * *

Meh. This one's just okay. I like the last paragraph the most probably, and the first the least.


	4. Rage

Disclaimer: FMA isn't mine.

* * *

He'd never seen her truly lose control. He'd never seen her give in and let loose in a whirlwind of anger. He was afraid if she did it would be because of him, and he would never be able to forgive himself for it. He, on the other hand, was more than happy to shout and yell and make his anger known to the world. It wasn't often that he bothered to exercise control over his rage because she did plenty of that for the both of them.

He'd shouted and shouted when he had found out about the alchemy tattooed on her back. At her, at her father, at himself. It was such a horrible thing the old man had done, scarring his daughter forever, and if she couldn't find it in herself to let go and give him another reason to believe she was human then he would have to. He'd gone on and on - why hadn't she come to him, protested, something...He swore he would never become as obsessed and paranoid as his teacher, that he would never hurt innocent people in his quest for knowledge. He'd shouted and ranted and thought that maybe he would never stop until he looked at her face. She'd sat there through the whole thing, so small and contained and too good to be true. When he'd shouted, she'd cried.

There had been another time, in the aftermath of the fight with Lust. Somehow she'd managed to come out unscathed, but things could have been worse, so much worse. It was the closest he'd ever seen her to losing control, and it had been his fault. A mere mis-communication, the truth warped and twisted to suit the needs of the enemy, but she'd given up. Something else new for her, one of those rare outward displays of emotion. He'd shouted and shouted, saying she couldn't afford to give up, couldn't afford to mistake lies for the truth. She'd borne it in silence, as cool and composed as ever. Where he was all to obviously human, with his hate and anger and arrogance and ignorance, there were times when she seemed all too impervious to such things to possibly be.


	5. Religious

Disclaimer: FMA isn't mine.

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It was the only time of the year she went to church.

On Christmas Eve she could always be found behind the stained glass windows and under the vaulted ceilings. She went every year, with her cousin Emmily, one of the few remaining family members she had left. She sat on the hard wooden benches, looking slightly out of place with Emmily and her husband Will and their three children, Sarah, Jarod and Kate. Every year she put on the same white button up blouse and high waisted black skirt and let her hair down. Every year she sang along with the faintly remembered hymns and clasped her hands in prayer.

Afterwards, after helping Emmily bundle the children into their winter coats, they walked home through the snowdrifts, snow soaking through their shoes and into their thick woolen socks. She always sat in the folding chair closest to the fire and listened absently as Will told Christmas stories to the children. Every year she drank one glass of champagne and politely turned down Emmily's friend, Mitch. She always stayed for one hour after the children had been tucked into bed, then took a cab back to her apartment. When she payed the cab driver, she always gave him exactly one dollar and fifty cents as a tip.

Every year she sat, huddled on the couch with her dog curled at her feet and remembered helping her father carry in the perfect Christmas tree, when she was too little to be any sort of help, and he was healthy enough to believe in tradition. He hadn't been religious, but her mother had been, and the first Christmas Roy had spent with them had been the first he hadn't set up a tree. She always had one cup of hot cocoa, because it reminded her of the Christmas nights she'd spent with Roy as a child, even though they'd both ceased to believe in holiday magic by that point.

She always went to bed at eleven thirty, and woke at eight thirty, giving her time to eat breakfast and feed Hayate before he called to wish her a Merry Christmas. Every year he asked her why she went to church, and her answer was always the same.

"Even though I'm not religious, I wish I could be."


	6. Reality

Song: Unhappy - Thriving Ivory

_You look a little unhappy_

_about the way the world is turning..._

_Is there anything I can do_

_to take your mind off_

_your trouble hearted kind?_

This was the last place he'd ever expected to see her. Here among the bruised and bloody young men, the so-called Future of the Nation. Among the bitter old men and the men fighting to protect their families. Against what? They were fighting the wrong enemy, as far as he was concerned.

She looked so small, hunched in the sand blasted jacket, cramped between two men whose every other word was one that would have made her flinch, once upon a time. Had it really been that long since he'd left her alone in that decrepit old house? He felt a twinge of guilt as he realized how many birthday cards he hadn't sent, how many phone calls he'd forgotten to make.

Watching her sit there, reliving the screams of the dying and the desperate sobs of the living, he wished he could turn back the dial on that silver pocket watch that had cost him so much. He wished he could return to the times when she was a fairytale princess rather than an Ice Queen and he was her knight in shining armor rather than a fire breathing dragon. But even she, who'd had soft brown eyes and a shy, little-girl smile wasn't perfect if she'd come after someone as flawed and foolish as him.

Into every fairytale a little reality must fall. And she was his. Both the fairytale and the reality.

* * *

School takes up way too much of my life.


	7. Riveted

He sat, riveted, unable to tear his eyes from the piece of white paper on the desk in front of him. His hand sat clasped firmly in his lap; if he let himself pick it up, he might lose control and tear it to shreds before he could stop himself. He didn't trust himself not to. Just one sheet of white paper, black ink smelling fresh, the looping signature at the bottom condemning the world with just a handful of letters.

He had felt the other losses; the death of his best friend, the incapacitation of Havoc, among other things. They had been bearable, if only just. This was crippling. He could have dealt with anything but this.

He was so distracted that he didn't notice when Fuery had returned from his lunch break, carrying his familiar metal lunch box. Nor when he was presented with the resignation papers for one Jean Havoc.

"Sir?" That was her voice, finally speaking somewhere other than in his head, quiet and subdued. He looked up with a start and realized she'd taken the paper from his desk and now held it in her hands. Their eyes met, dark, brooding versus calm, melancholy brown. They both knew what was happening, and were powerless to prevent it.

Without another word she handed the white piece of paper back to him. He fumbled for a pen momentarily, then, feeling as though he were signing away what little remained of his life, scribbled the few sloppy lines that his signature had long ago morphed into, acknowledging the transfer of the few remaining friends he had.


	8. Reveal

Song: Say - John Mayer

_Walking like a one man army, _

_fighting with the shadows in your head..._

She wished he didn't close himself off from the world the way he did, didn't turn his back and shut his mouth when things got difficult and he needed someone to talk to.

_His back was turned, the black expanse of his coat covering the blue military uniform that he didn't always remember why he wore, that covered up what remained of the person she knew. Beneath the navy blue fabric he was bare, his soul exposed for the whole world to see, his ideals and fragile hopes and tentative dreams laid out in a row of paper thin china cups on which the fists of skeptics were descending._

Hypocritical, since she did the same thing, shutting herself in and shutting the world out.

_She pulled her hair back because it was practical. Folded up and over that cheap, drugstore hair clip he'd given her. Pulling her hair back she could pretend it was still short, close cropped as in the days when they were young and her fathers' anger was the most either of them had to fear. It let him forget who she really was, let the person he'd fallen in love with disappear, vanish invisible inside the mask of a stranger._


	9. Reason

Song: As Is - Ani Difranco

_What scares me _

_is that while you're telling me stories, _

_you actually _

_believe that they are real..._

Sometimes he thought that if he said something enough, it might actually come true. If he told himself he would reach the top one day, he would. If he told himself he didn't love her, his heart might stop pounding every time she came near. If he told himself that Hughes wasn't really six feet under the frozen ground of the cemetery with brown grass speckled with frost carpeting his grave, he might actually come walking through the door once more, pockets full of pictures of his daughter. If he told himself that the Ishbal War wasn't planned, wasn't started on purpose, their leader might cease to be a monster that threatened the very existence of their country. If will itself wasn't enough to make something happen, than what on earth was he wasting his time for?

Sometimes he thought that if he said something enough, it might actually make a difference. If he told himself that she wasn't going to die, then she wouldn't. If he told himself that she reacted to his touch the way he reacted to hers, on the rare occasions their hands brushed and his skin tingled and his palms began to sweat, then she would. If he told himself that they would make it through all this in one piece, they would. If he told himself that the next time the phone rang it would be Edward and Alphonse Elric, saying they had finally found the Philosopher's Stone, it would be. And then he would remember all the other things he'd told himself he wouldn't let happen that had and he would be forced to see reason once more.


	10. Responsible

Reasonable Riza. Rational Riza. Responsible Riza. That's what people had said, all her life. Reliable. She was the one you could depend on. She was the one you could count on to have good judgement when yours had deserted you. When you were drunk out of your mind, it was she you wanted at your side because she never took more than a sip and could always remember where you lived, even when you yourself didn't. She always did the right thing, the responsible thing, what everyone else expected of her. She fulfilled everyone's expectations but her own.

She was a perfect child. She always kept her room tidy, always cleared the table after supper and there was never dirt beneath her fingernails.

She was a perfect daughter. She didn't disturb her father in his studies, made sure he took his medicine on time once he took ill and brought him his meals on a tray.

She was a perfect soldier. She kept her gun in clean, working order, was meticulous about turning in paperwork on time and never let Havoc smoke in the office, when she caught him at it.

She was a perfect body guard. She would sacrifice herself for him in an instant, did her best to make sure no harm came to him and never let him lose himself completely.

She thought she was the farthest thing from perfect, because whenever she looked at him she saw all the tiny scars she knew were there, saw all the times she had failed because she had been doing the right thing, the thing that was expected of her.

If the cost of being perfect was that she would lose him, then she didn't want to be perfect anymore.

* * *

This one is kind of rambling and incoherent, at least to me. I started with the last line in mind, but it didn't turn out how I wanted it too.


	11. Red

Red.

Red is all consuming, destructive.

Red is passionate, romantic.

Red is the color of blood, the tint of the sky in their nightmares.

Red is a kind of wine. Red wine, the kind he finds her drinking one night a year. The day the war ended.

Red is the color of the lipstick she wears when they attend Maes and Gracia's wedding.

Red is the color of the walls in her fathers study. A dark, mysterious red, obscured by heavy wooden bookcases and piles of dusty old books.

Red is the color of the dress her mother was buried in.

Red is the color of the necklace she finds in her fathers desk after he passes away. A single ruby set in gold, with her mothers initials on the back. After that she leaves her fathers things alone. There are too many ghosts to be uncovered.

Red is the color of the tulips he leaves on Maes's grave when the ground is covered in snow. You can see them from everywhere, the brightest thing in the middle of winter.

Red is the color of his eyes. Red with anger when he's about to lose her.

Red is the color her eyes are from crying when she thinks she has lost him.

Red is the color of the bow in Elysia's hair on her third birthday.

Red is the color of the coat that Edward Elric always wears.

Red is the color of the blood seal in Alphonse Elric's armor.

Red is the color of the tattoo that spreads across her back.

Red is the color of the scars on his side.

Red is the color of the roses he leaves on her doorstep. Six of them, wrapped in paper and tied with a red ribbon. There is a note with them, just a folded scrap of paper saying, _For Riza_. He doesn't sign his name, but he doesn't have too. She knows his handwriting better than her own, sometimes.

Red is the color of the quilt on her bed, one of the few keepsakes she has kept from her childhood. It is the only splash of color in the apartment; everything else is still packed in boxes.

Red is the color of the embroidery on the curtains hanging in the window of his foster mothers house.

Red is the color of the labels on the boxes that fill her apartment.

Red is the color her cheeks turn when Rebecca first insinuates that there is something more between her and Roy than there should be. She denies all accusations, but she can't deny her embarrassment.

Red is anger, hatred and other unpredictable emotions.

Red is love.


	12. Reprobated

He is desperate.

He would do anything to turn back the clock. He would do anything to save her. He would give himself up if he thought it could help.

He is angry. Beyond angry.

He has never felt rage like this before. Not when Hughes died, not when he was told to take the lives of thousands of innocents, not when he discovered the tattoo on her back. Never.

He is helpless.

He has never, in all his thirty years, been this useless before. This pathetic, this worthless. He has never felt as though alchemy, one of the few constants in his life, has failed him.

He is confused.

He doesn't know where to go from here. There is the obvious answer, the one he jumps to first. The one that offers no hope for her, no hope for either of them.

He is lost.

He knows what she would want him to do. What she wouldn't want him to do. She was always more reasonable than he, and that holds true, even now.

He is afraid.

He is afraid of giving in. He is afraid of disappointing her in what are most likely her last moments in the world.

He is rueful.

He regrets every wasted opportunity, every missed chance he had to tell her how he feels. Not it is too late.

She is dying.


	13. Reassuring

There are photographs of them when they are younger where you could have mistaken them for siblings, except for their noses. One dark haired, pale, skinny boy, one light haired, pale, skinny girl, both with a similar expression on their faces. Of course, there are only a few photographs of the two of them as children; they are from the first year or so that Roy spent with them. Back then, during that first summer, her father was still healthy and strong as she liked to remember him, during one of those brief periods in which he escaped the depression that had haunted him since the death of his wife. Back then he hadn't been so absorbed in his work. He'd had time for his daughter, time to make sure they had food in the cupboard, time to stay up late playing cards with the two of them.

There are photographs of them from when they first joined the military. They both look uncomfortable in the stiff, new uniforms with their thick, dark blue fabric that still smells foreign because they haven't worn them enough for the fabric to start to smell like them. They look out of place, as do the hundreds of other fresh, young faces, still innocent, still believing there is good in the world, still hoping for a better future. There is much they haven't seen of the world; you can see it in the slightly surprised looks on their faces, the extra fabric in the shoulders of her uniform because her shoulders aren't broad enough to fill them out, the polished brass buttons on his uniform, their neat, trim haircuts and the baby fat in their cheeks.

There are the photographs of them that were taken just after the end of the Ishbal War, when they were both promoted and had their ID photos retaken. These pictures are a world away from those first military pictures; there are circles under their eyes, their uniforms fit their bodies like a pair of much loved shoes and no longer look out of place. They look as though they belong in those uniforms, the thought of them wearing something else foreign and impossible. The uniforms are no longer than fresh, newly dyed color; they also contain the colors of death, the color of sand stretching out for miles in every direction, the colors of blood and guilt and hate.

There are photographs of them taken at Maes and Gracia's wedding. In one of them, they are dancing. There is no way you could mistake these two for siblings now. He is wearing black dress pants and a white button up shirt with a red tie that has been loosened. She is wearing a dark brown dress, a loose yellow sweater and there is a yellow flower pinned in her hair. Her hair is not yet long enough to brush her shoulders, just reaching her chin, and he has given up his three week attempt at growing a beard. His hand is resting lightly on her waist and their bodies fit together in all the right places. Her hands have been placed tentatively on his shoulders and she is laughing; you can see exactly how comfortable they are in every line of their bodies.


	14. Reply

_I don't deserve you,_ he thought. _But I want you so badly. _He traced his fingers over the black lines on her back, wondering again, for what was probably the millionth time in the past few days since her fathers' funeral how someone could do such a horrible thing. She had reached out and closed his eyelids with her small, gentle fingers. Pulling her shirt back on over that small black bra she had pressed her lips gently to his, hers still soft and sweet like those of a little girl.

"I don't deserve you," he said. She just smiled and shook her head, the first smile that had graced her face for as long as he could remember. The war had taken a lot out of her, more than he'd thought she had to give. It was good to see her here, with her hair pinned up and dressed in something other than the blue military uniform he had become so accustomed to seeing her in. A wedding was what they had all needed.

_I don't deserve you,_ he wrote on the card that accompanied the dozen red roses he had delivered to her doorstep. It had been three months since his transfer out East and he thought he might die if he didn't see her again soon. That day, he had left work early to arrange for a dozen roses to be delivered to her house every day for a week. She had gone out and bought a vase.

"I don't deserve you," he had whispered in her ear one night when he thought she was asleep. She had tightened her grip on his hand and sighed and he could almost hear the words she didn't say. _You are such a fool_.

_I don't deserve you,_ he had written beneath his signature when she had collected his paperwork. She had frowned, torn the paper neatly into four pieces, and handed him a fresh sheet of paper. "You're just making this harder on yourself Colonel," had been her only words to him for the rest of the day. The next morning, when she arrived at work, five minutes late, she found a slip of paper folded beneath a cup of fresh coffee. _I'm sorry,_ it had read. She had glanced over at him accusingly and he had just smiled and shrugged.

"I don't deserve you," he had mumbled when he felt her sit beside him in the hospital, wishing he could see her one last time, wished he could have a picture of her to store in his mind, wished he could see her smile again. She hadn't said anything but she didn't have to; her presence was comfort enough.

_I don't deserve you, _he thought. As though she could read his mind, she reached out and took his hand in her own, tracing small circles on his skin with one smooth, cold finger. They sat there like that for a long time, two uncertain people in uncertain times.

"I don't deserve you," he told her on the day she handed in her resignation papers for the military. She had put her finger to his lips to silence him.

"You deserve more than I can give you," she replied, for the first time in ten years.


	15. Reach

The black lines on her back are worth more than anything she can possibly say. It is alchemy, that much he knows, and with that knowledge, he knows everything.

"_My daughter has my research."_

What a callous way to put it.

There are so many things he could, should, wants to say, so many questions to ask. (_how? how_ _could he? why? why didn't you stop him, why did you go along with this, why didn't you tell me?_) He knows the answers to all of them, but he doesn't want to believe it and he wants to ask her, just so she can tell him he's wrong, because he has to be. So many words threatening to spill out, on the tip of his tongue, a torrent of anger and hate and disgust and _how could he do this to you? How could you let him?_

He doesn't say anything. How could he? There is nothing to say, really, despite the words whirling and twisting and _writhing _inside him, threatening to fly out.

She is silent too.

She is stretched out on the old rug in front of the fireplace, her legs up in the air, bent at the knee. She is lying on her stomach, firelight gleaming on her pale skin, keeping the goose bumps at bay.

He clenches his hands into fists to keep himself from reaching out and tracing the lines with his fingers, running them along the back of her bra, down to trace the waistband of her pants where half of the key is concealed. He itches to touch her, to feel the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingers.

Instead, he stretches out on his back beside her, folding his arms beneath his head. The rise and fall of his chest is pronounced, the soft rush of his breath amplified.

"Can you read it?" Her voice splits the silence, soft, scarcely more than a whisper. He can hear the desperation in her voice, needing to know that all the pain her father put her through is worth something. She rolls over onto her side, facing him, the flickering firelight casting her face into shadow, her brown eyes lowered.

"It'll take a while, but yes." Her relief is palpable, as though she has shouted it at the top of her lungs rather than letting it out in a soft, barely noticeable sigh.

He reaches out his hand to brush her hair from her face and pulls back at the last second. Her eyes are closed.

There is a question burning in the back of his throat; he has to know, can't take it one more second. It will destroy him if he doesn't let it out.

"When?" One word, but she knows exactly what he means. She reaches out tentatively and covers his hand with her own smaller one; she is braver than he is, or perhaps her fear isn't as great.

"Three months after you left."

His worst fears are confirmed; her father waited until he was gone to record his research, one of the last things he accomplished before his death. The guilt is eating him from the inside out. Perhaps if he'd never left, this would have never happened. . . This is what he left her to, to cope with this on her own, just so he could make an attempt at achieving the glory he has longed for his entire life.


	16. Recognize

At first he doesn't recognize her. She looks so different, with her hair grown a bit longer and hiding her eyes, wearing that dusty, desert colored coat meant to help you blend in, her hands calloused and her eyes haunted. She has changed so much - not just in appearance - since he saw her last, that even though there's something vaguely familiar about her that nags at the back of his mind, he can't put his finger on it.

Of course, he doesn't really get to see her up close at first; just a fleeting glimpse of those soft eyes sharpened by the things they have seen.

When he does realize who she is, the recognition comes so sudden that it hits him almost as though he has been punched in the stomach and he gasps, just managing to keep himself from stumbling backwards. After a long moment of shock the questions start flooding his brain, rushing in an overwhelming tide, crashing through the flood gates and dams of rational thought. (_What is she doing here? Why is she here? How long has it been since I saw her last? How much has she changed? How much have _I _changed?_)

She murmured hello, that familiar shy smile coming over her face and he wondered how he didn't recognize her before, even though he knows the answer. (_This is the last place in the world he would have expected to find her, here with blood staining the ground you walk on and sand tasting gritty between your teeth everytime you breathe in.) _She fumbles over his name, his rank unfamiliar when paired with his last name.

"I'm here for my own reasons, of my own freewill," is her response when he gives in and lets the torrent of questions come surging out, words blurring together in a confusing jumble. It sounds rehearsed, as though she feels the need to justify herself to him, to herself.

He reaches out, touching her cheek, feeling her skin (_soft, smooth, a reminder that there is an outside world that knows nothing of fear, doesn't know the feeling of life leaving the body of a friend, the tears streaming down your cheeks and leaving dirt tracks on your dusty face when you see someone you don't know die in your arms) _beneath his fingers. The sky above is orange, streaked with pink and red, a softer combination of colors than he has become used to. It is almost dusk, that time of day when the sun fills every crack and crevice, gilding the barrels of rifles and the steely edges of swords, casting purple shadows over the city and its dead.

She turns away, afraid he'll realize what she's thinking, afraid he'll see the reason she is here in her eyes, afraid he'll see into her soul because she feel so transparent when he looks at her. She is here for him, here to make sure he makes it to the other side, makes it out in one piece. Here to make sure his promise will be fulfilled, to make sure they will have other promises to make.

He recognizes something in her that day. It's the same thing he sees in himself.


	17. Rain

Song: Dustland Fairytale - The Killers

_Change came in disguise, _

_a revelation set his soul on fire,_

_she said she always knew_

_he'd come around..._

* * *

Sometimes he felt that he hung onto sanity by a thread - she was his anchor, and the rope that bound them was fraying. Without her, he was a ship adrift at sea, without a purpose. Without him, she was a sea goddess with no hold on reality.

One day that thread broke - he ran and ran and ran until he couldn't run any more, until his breath came in ragged gasps that covered up his tears. He left her behind, wondering what had happened, what she had done wrong, why he felt the need to cling so tightly to dry land.

He couldn't find himself anymore - he was adrift, lost at sea and unable to point himself towards home. He needed to get away, take in a breath of air that didn't drag him under with every breath. He was afraid of drowning, and he had felt the waters closing in over his head.

Four and a half months later he arrived on her doorstep, apologies pouring from his lips like rain from the sky, his heart in his hands. She just smiled and wove her fingers between his. Then she kissed him, the morning light illuminating her blonde hair and the edges of her brown eye lashes with gold.

"I always knew you'd come around," she whispered, for if she was the sea, then he was a sailor, and she was where he belonged.


	18. Relinquish

_He has been released from the hospital. It is a hassle to get him back to his apartment, a hassle to get him up the stairs, a hassle to help him into a clean pair of his own clothes that smell like something other than a too-clean hospital full of people who are only half alive. Afterwards, he wishes she would leave, doesn't want her, of all people, to see him like this. He wishes she would go home, send someone else to take care of him (the thought makes him cringe), tell him she has other, more important things to do than tending to his wounded pride. That would be better than having her stick around to see him stumble around his own home, better than having her there trying to convince him that she still thinks he is worth looking after, even though he has never been more useless in his entire life._

Even now, she is reaching out, taking his hand in hers, unwilling to let go.

* * *

A/N: I know this is short, but I felt that if I added anything else it would take away from what I already had.


	19. Ruin

It has been four years since they came back from the war. Four years since whatever connection they had once shared ceased to be enough. Four years, and he can still remember.

_He has blood on his hands. They are covered in it, and sometimes, right before he falls asleep he can hear the others whispering "murderer". He has nightmares where the whole world is crashing down around him and he can't save her, can't save the one person who matters most because he just isn't strong enough. He can see his comrades falling around him, collapsing, dying - and there is nothing he can do to help them because it seems out of all of them, he has been God cursed to live to see the sunrise and illuminate the graveyard that lies around him, the wreckage of so many lives, the ruins of a city. When the sun does rise it turns the sky as red as blood, the same blood the rivers are running with, the same blood that stains the sand beneath his feet. He is surrounded by the wreckage of his life, the ruins he has made of the opportunities that were handed to him. Try as he might, no matter how grand and noble his intentions might be, it is never he who suffers for his mistakes, for the lies he didn't see concealed behind smiling eyes. _

_He is always one step behind._


	20. Reflection

The first time he saw her, it was through the window of an unfamiliar car. She sat on the unfamiliar cement steps of an unfamiliar house that he was supposed to call home although it was still just a house, anyone's house, and certainly not his. She was an unfamiliar figure with blonde hair floating in a cloud around her face, escaping from her braids, clad in a soft purple shirt and worn overalls and bandaids in X's over both her elbows. Her father was unfamiliar as well, for all that they had spent the past two days travelling together, but to a boy of only thirteen Master Hawkeye's long black coat made him as cold and distant as he had thought these mountains were, as cold and distant as they still seemed to him despite the fact that his feet touched down in them as he stepped out of the car. Her mother was nothing like his own mother, an unfamiliar, pale wisp of a woman in a pale dress with a voice like a whisper and long, thin fingers that seemed almost translucent.

She had turned her eyes up at him and the intense stare with which she took in the intruder in her life came as a shock to him, as familiar as his own face because each morning, it was that same expression that greeted him in the mirror.

* * *

A/N: Sorry it's been so long since I've updated anything...our computer completely died and we had to replace it, so I haven't had access to anything in forever...


	21. Reality, 2

They have both always been 'dreamers'.

She feels that is the perfect word to describe them, for it sounds childish. She knows that her dreams belong strictly in the realm of sleep, and when she catches herself longing for something she knows she will never have –_their hands brush, just for a moment, for once he isn't wearing gloves and it is skin that touch_es – she turns away; acknowledging its existence would give it a place in her heart that means she still believes in it – _she pulls away sharply and their eyes meet for a second, just a split second, and his gaze is searching, searching for something as though he can find the answers in her face, in her own brown eyes _– and the moment passes.

He knows his dreams are naïve. He knows it, hasn't he always know it? and yet he still believes, they are what get him through each day because without that possibility of something to look forward to, to care about, to dream of – _their hands brush, just for a moment, and for once he isn't wearing gloves and it is skin that touches_ – what is there to keep fighting for? She must see something in them, for it is the reason that she is still there – _he means to take her fingers in his own, but before the thought is fully realized she pulls away, their eyes meet for a second, just a split second and her gaze is distant, as though she sees something in his face that he does not_ – and the moment passes.

They both prefer their dreams to reality, but she believes that that is not where they belong.


End file.
